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Creag na Fala

Information:Boggy places were often where cattle were taken before being bled and killed - Iain Fraser, School of Scottish Studies, 7/1997.

In the spring, and when times were hard, cattle in the Highlands were also sometimes bled.
The people in their need turned to many forms of food in the old days. A curious one was the eating of the blood of their cattle. Blood was drawn...it was boiled, mixed with meal and eaten as a sort of cake. Highland Folk Ways, IF Grant, Routledge, 1961, p 300.
This happened too on Tiree.
JMcI: Have you ever heard of bleeding the cattle [on Tiree]?
DS: Yes. I never saw it, but I heard about it.
JMcI: When was that?
DS: Oh! A long time ago, a hundred years ago. They were taking blood from the cows and giving it to poor people...it was when my father was young...they were boiling it and adding it to potatoes or meal. Oh! They were poor times!
JMcI: Was it done anywhere special?
DS: In the fang.
Donald Sinclair, West Hynish talking to Dr John MacInnes from the School of Scottish Studies in 1968, SA 1968.035.